Meet Fiona. Found in the babysitter’s driveway yesterday afternoon. Scooped up with a butterfly net by the babysitter’s intrepid sister-in-law, who also happened to have a spare cage in her attic.

Here are the reasons we are not, under any circumstances, adopting Fiona, why we are not even going to foster him over the weekend:

His owners will definitely notice the “Found: Budgie” posters that Rowan and Isaac are currently making to staple to streetlight posts on the block, and so we shouldn’t let the boys get too attached. This, after Rowan has already named the bird — after one of his senior kindergarten teacher’s daughters, no less, in honour of the last day of school. He also considered, he told me, the names Alice and Charlotte.

We have two cats. They will, as Isaac might say, “make the bird get deaded.”

Someone who shall remain name Rachel has a bird phobia.

And then our neighbour said, “And can't you get that disease from birds? My aunt got it.”

Having another living creature in this house makes things more complicated, and I am not looking for more complicated. I am looking for simpler. I am looking for less complicated. I am not looking to find someone to budgie-sit each time we go away. I am not looking to add (feh) “Clean cage” to the list of unfinished chores that constantly haunts me.

Budgie = gateway drug to dog.

But, dammit, he’s cute. Even as I know exactly why we will NOT adopt this budgie, I can’t resist making big blinky eyes at Rachel whenever the subject comes up. I could tip so easily. So, so easily. Like, easily enough that you might consider creating a betting pool on this very subject. And, if I did, Fiona could sit just over here on my left shoulder while I typed during the day, and I could teach him to talk. And then Rachel would leave me. And I would get deaded from the exhaustion of raising two children, two cats, and a budgie all by myself.